


Borrowed Jacket

by JackyM



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: M/M, omg at this point it goes without saying i'm not sure when this takes place ;w;
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 22:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyM/pseuds/JackyM
Summary: Sometimes, it just feels right being with someone.





	Borrowed Jacket

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write a Twin Peaks fic since...oh, man, SEPTEMBER, when Season 3 ended, but I've been busy with school and when I wasn't busy with school I was having issues with mental health so I didn't really have the energy to write anything. 8,3 But I don't have lots of coursework this weekend so I thought I'd write this!
> 
> Most of why I'm writing this is because honestly Coop needs to not suffer anymore and be cared for and really loved by someone. ;v;
> 
> ...Just looking this I should hope I didn't give the impression that Harry was like looking at him pulling a theretofore physiologically impossible sleeping position and decided to just leave him there, my point was that he knows Coop well enough to know he'd wanna get back into things after getting up, is all! And I forgot if the sheriff's station had a couch or not and it was too late for me to wanna go and check. But sorry if I gave a weird impression as a forward. ;w;

“I won’t be going to sleep tonight, Harry,” Dale had said about forty minutes ago, “it is simply a matter of stimulating my central nervous system and not letting it instigate drowsiness. I have done it before, and I know my limits, and how I can use my time.”

Harry didn’t counter this with anything; he knew Dale more than well enough at this point to know that his sharp sense of precision for these sorts of things had its physiological accuracy, but Harry also knew that Dale had been pulling enough late nights as it was working on Laura Palmer’s case, and the thing about people was if they kept going and going without sleeping, eventually, they’d just tire themselves out. Harry gathered very quickly that was the case as the hours ticked by. Dale, despite lots of coffee, was struggling to stay awake, yawning and rubbing his eyes and keeping his eyes glued to the documents he was going over. He conceded to Harry, shortly after saying that he wasn’t going to sleep, that he was just going to rest his eyes for a second and give his body the impression that he was resting so that he may be more efficient in the following minutes. Within the following minutes, however, Dale was well within what people could call “asleep”, and not “resting their eyes”. On the one hand, Harry wondered if Dale would’ve wanted him to wake up, but on the other hand, Dale often had shown himself to have little to no clue of how exhaustion worked, and he needed sleep before he pushed himself to a point of one day just collapsing in the middle of the day due to the sheer force of it. 

Harry figured he’d give it a few minutes before trying to shake Dale awake. At the very least, a little bit of sleep would be beneficial. But, Harry supposed, he admired all of that about Dale. How devoted he was, and how it always showed. But it wasn’t just that crisp sense of professionalism yet creative sense of problem solving that made Harry feel so drawn to him. No, it was something else. A feeling sort of like gratitude, maybe to the universe, or something like that. Gratitude that he knew someone like Dale, someone who was on a wavelength that complemented his, and made him feel all the more confident the case was in the right hands. He trusted Dale. Even if he didn’t understand his ways of doing things a lot of the time, he trusted him. And Dale’s trust in him...well, it’s what made Harry like Dale so much. Maybe like wasn’t a strong enough word. Maybe love worked better. Maybe, love worked a lot better. Harry saw Dale starting to fidget in his sleep, sinking deeper into the chair and spreading his arms out so he was covering his face with his hands. He shook Dale’s shoulder a few times, to no avail. Dale sighed and muttered something unintelligible, and then went back to sleeping in what Harry could only guess wasn’t a particularly comfortable position, though Dale’s body seemed well accustomed to sleeping in that position. 

“You’re a strange one, Coop,” said Harry, taking off his jacket and draping it over Dale’s sleeping figure, making sure it went over his shoulders. It didn’t get too cold in the conference room, but, well...he thought it might help. 

* * *

The following morning was a cold one. Dale woke up disoriented, a little sore, and less freezing than he expected. He didn’t know what time it was, exactly, but he guessed around seven or eight in the morning. When he sat up, and noticed Harry’s jacket wrapped over his shoulders, his face softened. It was one of his heavier ones, one of the heavier ones that Dale had no doubt was perfect for a climate like Twin Peaks. It felt like him, too, because it was something that very obviously belonged to him. Like him, it was firm, but it was flexible, never slipping off someone he cared about. And in a far more literal sense, it smelled like him. Like Douglass firs and freshly cut wood and the familiar air the sheriff's station always had about it. It felt like...well, it felt like Harry was there at that very moment, and that feeling was a wonderful one. 

Figuring Harry would be in already, he got up to go thank him, and maybe say that he wasn’t quite as well-rested as he should have been for the current situation, something like that. Whatever had happened, he was exhausted, and apparently he couldn’t stay up any longer than he had. Maybe he just needed stronger coffee. If coffee in Twin Peaks could get any stronger, that is. It was enticingly robust as it was. While thinking about how good strong coffee was, he bumped into Harry on his way to his office. For a split second Dale wasn’t quite sure what to say, he just looked at Harry for what felt like a longer amount of time than it actually was, and he wouldn’t been lying if he didn’t feel his blood starting to pump with more vigor than usual.

“Ah, Harry, I was, I was just looking for you,” Dale said as smoothly as he could manage, “About last night, Harry, I--”

“Don’t worry about it. You seemed pretty tired. I tried waking you up, but I think you were exhausted, Coop.”

Dale exhaled, breaking his eye contact with Harry for a few moments.

“Thank you, for this,” said Dale, feeling himself starting to break eye contact again, “I...I...thank you. You’re a great man, Harry.”

Harry didn’t say anything; at first, Dale wondered if this had been a weird boundary he’d crossed, and it came off as...something. Something unreciprocated. He looked away, down, at the carpet, which needed a vacuum run over it, and had been, it seemed, for some time. Dale worried about this for a few seconds, before looking back at Harry sheepishly, and seeing only compassion. 

“I could say the same about you. One of the greatest.”

Dale smiled. He felt some of his embarrassment of the situation vanish. He hoped he wasn’t reading too much into things, mistaking one thing for another, coming off too strong, but he was beginning to have a hunch that none of that was the case.

When Dale gave Harry’s jacket back, he felt himself pulled into an embrace, and that was a favor he didn’t hesitate in returning. It felt nice. It felt comforting. He couldn’t explain it, but it felt right, foreheads and chests and arms, pressing against each other and intertwining.  And Dale didn’t know it’d ever felt quite this right feeling someone else’s existence next to his, so warm and solid and safe. If nothing else, he knew it was a feeling that meant a great deal to him, and that feeling was felt by Harry, too; that hunch had been proven to be a complete fact some minutes ago. Recalling how he felt before, just sitting in the conference room for a few minutes wearing Harry's jacket, he felt that same feeling, but intensified. It'd felt comforting wearing his jacket, and it felt even more comforting being in Harry's arms and pressing his forehead against Harry's for several moments and thinking,  _this is it, this is really it._  

That day, they always remembered, was a good one, characterized by a lot of shy hand-holding and kissing. 

Dale did end up returning Harry’s jacket that day, but that far from the last time he borrowed it. 


End file.
